The Story of an Ancient Parish Part 7

[49] See Gilbert's History of Cornwall.

[50] Life of Sidney G.o.dolphin by the Hon. Hugh Eliot.

The Arundells, de Pengersicks, Militons and Sparnons.

CHAPTER VII.

At the conclusion of the Norman Conquest all the land in the parish of Breage was in the possession of the Earls of Cornwall, with the exception of the manor of Methleigh, which still continued to be attached to the See of Exeter. Methleigh pa.s.sed from the Bishops of Exeter[51] to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter about 1160. Soon afterwards it was granted by the Dean and Chapter to the Nansladons, or Lansladons; from this family it pa.s.sed to the Chamonds, and from them to the Arundells.

In the fifteenth century the Arundells owned the Breage manors of Pengwedna, Methleigh and Treworlas; in fact a very large section of the parish. The ancient home of this family was at Yewton, in Devons.h.i.+re, where they had been settled since the days of King Stephen. They are said to have been of Norman origin, and that the first form of their name was Hirondelle; at any rate, the swallow figures upon their s.h.i.+elds. It is possible, on the other hand, that this device of the swallow may have been merely due to the vogue for canting heraldry, an example of which we have in the G.o.dolphin helmets hanging from the roof in Breage Church, which take the form of sea monsters or dolphins rearing their heads above the waves. A more prosaic but probable origin of the Arundells would connect them with the ancient Suss.e.x town of that name. The pathway of the Arundells to greatness[52] lay not so much by the way of the tented field as along the flowery paths of successful match-making; they moved forward rather to the music of wedding bells than to the brazen blast of the trumpet sounding the charge. It was to the former music that their broad lands in Breage came to them.

In the thirteenth century Ralph Arundell had risen to influence and the possession of the manors of Trembath and Treloy through marriage with the heiress of the Trembaths; and in the following century his descendant acquired the manor of Lanherne by marriage with the heiress of the ancient house of Pincerna.

The manor of Pengwedna in Breage was held by the senior branch of the family, the Arundells of Lanherne; whilst the manors of Treworlas and Methleigh were held by the Arundells of Tolverne, one of the junior branches[53] of the family. Tolverne had come to the house of Arundell in the usual way in the reign of Richard II., Sir John Arundell of Lanherne having married the heiress of the manor, the daughter of Ralph le Sore. Sir John Arundell bequeathed this estate to his second son, Thomas, whose descendants held it until the time of Charles I. It was at Tolverne that Henry VIII. was entertained with great magnificence by his kinsman the Sir John Arundell of that day.

The story of the coming of the Arundells of Tolverne to their small manor of Truthual, in the parish of Sithney, is full of the flavour of ancient romance. It was at the time that the world was still dreaming of the land of El Dorado. The spoils of Mexico and Peru brought home by the Spaniards had profoundly moved the imaginations of all adventurous souls. Sir Thomas Arundell, of Tolverne, had listened to the tales of home-coming[54] adventurers of a marvellous island on the coast of America, called Old Brazil, where untold wealth lay ready as spoil for the brave and stout-hearted. He wasted his substance in vain search for this island of beauty and wealth--the pearl of American seas. Where he searched we do not know; only that his search was vain, and that he returned to his own land broken in fortune and probably also in spirit and in health, and that he was compelled to part with his ancestral acres of Tolverne and to make his home on his smaller estate in Sithney and Breage, which still remained to him from the wreck of his fortunes.

He was succeeded by his son, John Arundell, who served as a Colonel of Horse in the army of the King during the Civil War. This gallant soldier was buried in the north aisle of Sithney Church, and the tablet to his memory, which takes the form of a stone s.h.i.+eld, blazoned with swallows, is the only memorial now remaining of this once powerful family. The male line of this branch of the family became extinct on the death of John Arundell, in India, in 1776. Their estate of Methleigh was sold to the Coode family in the eighteenth century, and still continues in their possession. The manor of Treworlas which they had previously held in the parish had pa.s.sed in marriage to the Jago family in the seventeenth century. The Arundells are still represented in our midst in the female line in Messrs. John Arundell and William Arundell Pryor, of Lower and Higher Pengwedna, through Margaret Arundell, who married Richard Pryor, of Sithney, in 1704.

The manor of Pengwedna remained in the family of Arundell, of Lanherne, until it was sold in the eighteenth century by Lord Arundell of Wardour, who had inherited the estates of his Cornish kinsmen.

With regard to the manor of Methleigh, it may be worthy of mention that an ancient chapel seems to have existed on this manor, close to Tremearne Farm. A carved pillar of ecclesiastical design still survives, now used as a gate-post, and from time to time carved stones have been unearthed round the spot, one, I am told, containing a realistic representation of the Crucifixion. Round the presumed site of this chapel human bones have from time to time been laid bare. I have been unable to find any record of this forgotten chapel. As the spot commands a wide view of the sea, which beats upon the rocks below, its erection may have been due to the vow of some voyager who had escaped from the fury of the waves, and the bones resting round it may be those of drowned mariners; or it may be that we have here the site of the oratory of the ancient home of the Nansladons or the Chamonds; at any rate, all record of this ancient house of G.o.d and G.o.d's acre have long since faded into oblivion.

From the ancient family of Arundell we naturally pa.s.s to the owners of the tradition-haunted manor of Pengersick. An ancient race bearing the name of the manor long flourished there, their first coming being long since lost in the mists of the past. The Pengersicks are credited still in the minds of the people as having been remorseless wreckers, luring s.h.i.+ps to their doom on the Sands of Praa by false lights displayed on the sh.o.r.e. In a persistent tradition of this kind there is as a rule a substratum of fact; tradition has been proved time after time to rest upon a solid basis of truth, preserving for future generations a blurred vision of events from a long-forgotten past. That the Pengersicks were men of wild deeds, the a.s.sault by a member of the race, Henry de Pengersick, on David de Lyspein, Vicar of Breage, in 1335, whilst collecting the ecclesiastical dues of the parish, lends more than a suggestion; the a.s.sault, as we have seen in a former chapter, being of such a grievous and heinous nature as to lead to Henry Pengersick being placed under the ban of excommunication.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pengersick Castle.]

Mr. Robert Hunt, in his "Popular Romances of the West of England," has preserved one of the wild Pengersick legends, which I venture to record in an abbreviated form. The first Pengersick, so the legend runs, was a proud man, and desired to ally himself, if possible, with one of the great families of the county. In pursuance of this purpose he decided that his only son should wed a lady of high degree who was by no means young, and who had made her inclinations in the matter all too manifest.

The heir of Pengersick, however, had no desire to fall in with the plans of his father and the wishes of the elderly spinster. The black witch of Fraddam was therefore consulted--a terrible old beldam versed in all manner of sorceries; but even the strongest love potions that she could brew were powerless to melt the heart of young Pengersick. Love in the heart of the spinster, subjected to constant rebuffs and coldness, began to change to hate, and his father, finding that the heart of his son was obdurate, and his nature most obstinate, made suit to the spinster of high degree himself, and was smiled upon. Now it happened that the witch of Fraddam had a niece called Bitha, who had a.s.sisted her aunt in the brewing of her unholy potions. Bitha too, like the elderly spinster--now spinster no longer--had also fallen under the spell of the manly beauty of young Pengersick, and in order to win his affections determined to take service with his stepmother, now duly ensconced in Pengersick Castle. It fell out in the course of time as Bitha had hoped, and she won young Pengersick's heart, but unfortunately their love was discovered by the harridan stepmother; this discovery served only to deepen her hatred for one whom previously she had so pa.s.sionately loved.

She therefore determined once more without delay to employ the services of the black witch of Fraddam, whom she had previously discarded as an incapable physician. But here Bitha stepped in. She had not served an apprentices.h.i.+p to her aunt, the witch of Fraddam, in vain; she had kept her eyes open all the while she had helped in filling the caldron on Fraddam Down with horrible brews, and the knowledge thus obtained enabled her now to foil all the spells of her aunt upon the life of her beloved with more powerful counter-spells. At last the wicked old beldam of Pengersick, despairing once more of the weapons of sorcery, determined to arm herself with the more powerful ones of calumny and slander. She succeeded in persuading the foolish old lord, her husband, that his son was now manifesting the deepest affection towards her. This tale was altogether too much for the dotard to bear, and it stung him to ungovernable fury. He at once fell in with the carefully-prepared promptings of his wife, and had his unfortunate son seized by a gang of ruffian sailors, who carried him off to a s.h.i.+p that lay riding in the bay, in which he was taken to Morocco and sold as a slave. After this we gather that the poor old lord had little peace of mind; both mistress and maid were at one in desiring his dissolution. It was not long, till sad and weary he lay a-dying, when Bitha came and stood by his bed, and with pleasing candour divested herself of the mask of kindly affection behind which she had hitherto hidden herself, and in hard staccato tones told him of the vile machinations of his wife, and that he was now dying from the effects of slow poisons, which she herself had administered to him. There was now nothing more left for the poor old lord of Pengersick to do than to wearily turn his face to the wall and die, like many before and after him to whom knowledge had come too late.

After the lapse of long years, the heir of Pengersick suddenly returned to his home, bringing with him a dusky Eastern bride, whose beauty was like a dream. He and his bride were accompanied by two swarthy servants, with whom they conversed in a strange language. The lord of Pengersick used to ride forth from the castle mounted upon a coal-black charger; so obedient and docile in all its ways was this steed to its master that it soon came to be universally regarded as undoubtedly of satanic origin.

The new lord on his return found his wicked and foolish old stepmother shut up in her chamber, with her skin covered with scales like a serpent, from the effect of the fumes of the h.e.l.l-broth that she had been constantly brewing with the witch of Fraddam for his undoing and the infatuation of the foolish old lord his father. In her pain and misery she at last ridded him of her presence, and sought relief in death by plunging into the waves of the sea. The fumes of the witch's caldron, we gather, had also been too much for Bitha, and her once beautiful face had taken on the hue of a toad. She lived on, an ugly and miserable old crone, in a cot on St. Hilary Down.

The Eastern bride of the lord of Pengersick was kind and gentle to all with whom she had to do, and the lord himself, it was said, was generous and helpful to all around; but he made no friends.h.i.+ps nor held intercourse with those of his own degree. The returned lord was, in fact, a lonely and solitary man, riding forth alone and spending long hours poring over strange books. His chamber, it is said, was full of strange instruments, liquids and retorts, and as he laboured with these in solitude the castle would be filled with strange odours, which suggested the bottomless pit. At times as the night wind howled round the turrets of the castle his voice might be heard in the intervals of the blast summoning spirits from the unseen world, and as they came in clouds obedient to his bidding their voices were heard above the beating of the waves on the rocks beneath and the howling of the blast in the turrets. He was regarded by the people as a white witch, whilst the witch of Fraddam was a black witch and his ant.i.thesis. His spells were more powerful than hers, and he at last drove her to sea in a coffin from Germoe Churchyard, in which, as in a canoe, she could be seen on stormy nights riding over the waves round Pengersick Head, her wild, shrill shrieks of unholy laughter being carried on the storm-wind.

The beautiful lady of Pengersick rarely ventured from the castle; and in summer time, it was said, she would sit for hours with her cas.e.m.e.nt open to the sea, like a true Eastern lady, singing to the accompaniment of her harp the softest, sweetest songs. At times fits of unutterable gloom would settle down on the soul of her lord, and as David with his harp lifted the darkness from the soul of Saul, so this fair lady would soothe to rest the weary spirit of her lord. Years drifted on, bringing but little change, till one day there came a swarthy stranger of gloomy and forbidding mien to Marazion, where he took up his abode. The fishermen would see him sometimes as the night closed in sitting on the rocks overhanging the sea round Pengersick; or cottars would see him in the twilight wandering over the uplands. The lord of Pengersick went no more forth abroad, and a nameless dread seemed to have settled down on him and his lady. At last in the blackness of one awful night, in the midst of a terrible tempest that had risen up out of the Atlantic, a blaze of light shot up from the turrets of Pengersick Castle; and in the morning a blackened heap of ruins alone marked the spot where it had stood, and the lord of Pengersick and his lady, and their Eastern servants and his beautiful steed, and the mysterious stranger of dark and awful mien were never heard of more.

Of course, it is difficult to collect the sediment of truth at the bottom of the foregoing legend. Perhaps we may conclude that some lord of Pengersick, whose old age was not accompanied by the proverbial wisdom of that state, as not infrequently happens, had fallen under the spell of a mercenary Delilah, and that in his infatuation he had allowed his son to be kidnapped by a gang of sea ruffians and carried abroad like Joseph of old, to be added to the hordes of Christian slaves that in those days dragged out a dismal existence at Tunis or Algiers. The spiriting away of the heir would thus leave the field open for the cherished plans and hopes of Delilah. History has a knack of repeating itself, and more slaves have risen to power and influence in the land of their bondage than the patriarch Joseph. Possibly the conscience of the heir of Pengersick was more elastic than that of many of his fellows, and he found it possible to recite the "_fateheh_" of Islam with reverence and _empress.e.m.e.nt_. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were many Christian renegades holding high positions in the service of the Mohammedan Powers of the Mediterranean--some of them Englishmen. Perhaps this may have been the career of the heir of Pengersick, ending in a return to his native land with riches, a bride of the daughters of Islam, and an Arab steed. We may well ascribe the skin disease of his wicked stepmother to leprosy--then very common--rather than to the fumes of the witch's caldron. Adopting this rationalised interpretation of the legend, it is but natural to conclude that one who could thus readily exchange the creed for the "_fateheh_"

had no deep inward convictions, and men without deep convictions are ever p.r.o.ne to embark upon the sea of speculation, and pursue such philosophic phantoms as the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone; hence perhaps the strange instruments and the odours of the bottomless pit with which his name in tradition is a.s.sociated.

Mr. Botterell, in his "Traditions and Hearth Stories of the West of Cornwall,"[55] gives a more copious account of this legend of Pengersick than the one here followed. He states that he heard the legend from the lips of an elderly man at Gwinear, who had often heard it related in the days of his youth. The main features of this story are, however, the same; we have the additional statement in Mr. Botterell's legend that the old lord of Pengersick had himself in his youth been a soldier of fortune, and that the wander l.u.s.t from time immemorial had been effervescent in the blood of the race. The legend runs that the old lord in the beginning of his days, as there were no wars at home, had betaken himself in search of loot and glory "to outlandish countries far away in the East, to a land inhabited by a people little better than savages, who instead of tilling the ground or digging for tin, pa.s.sed the time in roving from place to place as they had need of fresh pasturage for their cattle, and that they lived in tents covered with the skins of their flocks, and that their raiment was made of the same material, and yet they had rich stores of jewels and gold, which they had obtained by the plunder of their more settled and industrious neighbours."

It is said, most probably with truth, that St. Germoe's Chair was erected by some member of the Pengersick family, possibly as a peace-offering to Mother Church after some more than usually wild and lawless deed. The recess in the south chancel wall of Germoe Church, with its canopy of carved stone now meant to be used as sedilia, most probably was the tomb of some member of this restless race. This brief account of the Pengersick family may be closed with the prosaic statement that one of them represented Helston in Parliament in 1397 and again in 1406.

The manor of Pengersick in the reign of Henry VIII. pa.s.sed by purchase to the family of Militon. The Militons descended from a daughter of the Pengersicks[56] it is interesting to note. According to Leland, Job Militon, the purchaser, came from Devons.h.i.+re. On his arrival at Pengersick he set about building the present crumbling grey tower, which though sadly shorn of its former splendours dominates the valley. Hals, whose veracity is much open to doubt, states that Militon had fled to this remote corner of the world to hide his head and avoid avenging justice, having imbrued his hands in the blood of a fellow-man. Whether this deed was done by accident or with intent Hals does not say. It is more than probable that it was never done at all. The reason for the fortifying of the house of the Militons is not far to seek: it stands close to the sea, and the sea in those days was the open highway of all lawless spirits. Often from the summit of the grey Keep of Pengersick, in the years that followed its erection, might have been seen the sails of Barbary corsairs on the bosom of the sea. The crew of the merchantmen and the lonely fisherman in his little boat were alike eagerly snapped up by these marauders to swell the growing population of slaves in Tripoli and Algiers. Under the shadow of night, when the sea was calm and the landing good, these rovers of the sea would steal insh.o.r.e in open boats and surround some sleeping hamlet or farmhouse. The strong men were carried off to labour as slaves under the hot sun of Africa till death liberated them from their misery, whilst the portion that fell to the fair daughter was the listless ennui of the harem. The sea rovers were not the only danger that would menace the dwellers in Pengersick Castle in those days; the constant wars in which this country was embroiled would bring danger also from privateers, the licensed robbers of the sea. Spanish, French and Dutch men-of-war and privateers, each in turn would appear in the bay as the centuries drifted on. From generation to generation, down to the first fifteen years of this century, Mount's Bay echoed to the hoa.r.s.e rumble of guns, and the cannon smoke of s.h.i.+ps engaged in deadly conflict drifted over its waters; whilst numbers of lawless men, smugglers by repute and pirates[57] when occasion served, dwelt upon its sh.o.r.es. Well might the first Militon ensconce himself within the fortified walls of his Keep of Pengersick, considering the condition of the times in which he lived.

An extract from the State Papers for the year 1526 makes it clear that the ancient spirit of the wild Pengersicks was by no means absent from the souls of the Militons. A Portuguese s.h.i.+p had been wrecked at Gunwalloe and much cargo saved. The cargo was seized by the servants of Job Militon, second of the name at Pengersick, Thomas St. Aubyn and William G.o.dolphin; when the unfortunate owner applied to the justices for redress he was told that such was the custom of the country, and that no redress of any kind was possible. It may be here mentioned that Job Militon was ultimately made Governor of St. Michael's Mount after the ill-starred rebellion of Humphrey Arundell.

A fragmentary account of the ancient tower, before cruel neglect and decay had done their fatal work, may be of interest: "On the wainscot of the upper storey, which is curiously carved and painted, there are several quaint pieces of poetry, which are now nearly effaced. Beneath the painting of a blind man carrying a lame man on his back occur the lines:

"The lame which lacketh for to go Is borne upon the blinde's back, So naturally between them twoo, The one supplied the other's lack.

The blinde to laime doth lend his might, The laime to blinde doth yield his sight."

Under another painting, which represented the constant dripping of water upon a rock, the following lines are found:

"What thing is harder than a rock!

What softer than water clear!

Yet will the same with often drop The hard rock pierce, as doth appear.

Even so nothing so hard to attayne, But may be had with labour and payne."

Other inscriptions and paintings in this ancient stronghold ill.u.s.trated the blessedness of loyalty to the Sovereign and the happiness of the kingdom that is served by faithful and patriotic Ministers; another the sacredness of the ties of marriage; and yet another, under the representation of an a.s.s laden with dainties and feeding upon thistles, the folly of the miser, who denies himself the necessaries of life and lays up store for others to wanton upon.

We can only deplore the spirit of neglect in generations that are gone that allowed this heritage of a former age to crumble and waste away by wind and rain and vandal hands. But for Dr. Borlase we should have never known of the former existence of the ancient frescos and their message of homely philosophy and truth.

A feature of Pengersick Tower is the numerous loopholes for the discharge of arrows upon besiegers, and also the elaborate arrangement for pouring boiling pitch or lead upon a.s.sailants attacking the doors.

The race of Militon did not long continue owners of Pengersick. Job Militon, son of the purchaser, was succeeded by his son William Militon, who died without issue, leaving his inheritance to be divided amongst his six sisters; the estate thus ultimately pa.s.sed through the female line to the G.o.dolphins and the Bullers.

Another ancient family owning considerable estates in the parish were the Sparnons, of Sparnon and Pengelly. They seem to have held their estates at any rate from the fifteenth century, if not earlier. We find from the Church registers that at the meridian of their prosperity they made alliances both with the G.o.dolphins and the Arundells. The outlines of the ancient home of the Sparnons at Sparnon, under the shadow of the eastern end of Tregoning Hill, may still be traced. The Sparnons ultimately built themselves a larger house on higher ground at Pengelly, part of which still exists, serving as a farm house. In our Church and churchyard several of the memorials of the Sparnons still survive. Their estates were purchased in the eighteenth century by Mr. Justice Buller, and are still held by his descendant, the present Lord Churston. The Carter family settled in America, who in recent years have been such generous benefactors to Breage Church, descend on the female side from the Sparnons. It is pleasant to realise how frequently the offshoots of old families renew themselves in new lands, sending forth vigorous shoots to carry on old traditions and ideals of service and usefulness.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] For the history of the Manor of Methleigh I am indebted to the Rev.

T. Taylor, of St. Just.

[52] See Vivian's "Visitations of Cornwall," Lyson's "Cornwall," etc., etc.

[53] Other powerful branches of the Arundell family were settled at Trerice, Mandarva and Tremoderet, in the Parish of Duloe.

[54] See Lyson's "Cornwall."

[55] Scenal Series, page 251.

[56] See a paper by the Rev. T. Taylor on "The Bevilles of Drennick and Woolstan," No. LIV. Journal of the Royal Inst.i.tution of Cornwall.

[57] State Papers.

Worthies and Unworthies.

_Harry Carter_, _John Carter, "King of Prussia"_; _Smuggling Ways and Days_; _William Lemon_, _Captain Tobias Martin, Poet_, _Joseph Boaden, Mathematician_.

CHAPTER VIII.